chapter 303

Ice Harvest

1/30/2013

keeping cool

My Grandpa Hayden survived the last ice age quite well you may recall. I rescanned this loose negative that I only briefly touched on in chapter 45. It's from 1942 (phone with Aunt Carol) when fam was still using ice in the milk house to cool product after milking and in the house icebox for refrigeration. I believe there was still one on the back porch in the 50's ( although Dale coul not confirm). Nowadays, my son pushes a button to get ice from his fridge, and I'm using this shot for my photo club's ice/snow theme this month.

Grandpa Hayden is on the right rear end of the homemade (model A Ford?) sled saw apparently guiding a shallow 3 inch initial scoring cut to maintain straight lines. Maybe used the hand ice saw for final cut. Hired man  Arnold Timmerman ( who later fell in ) and someone else (maybe Dad) on the left holding steady. The pond still exists behind where our old house was to be built a few years hence. You can see the Stan Connelly (George Pond) Barn roof behind Grandpa, Sherman Farm hillside, and on the left our hay barn.

You can see the blocks already cut strewn behind them. It appears the blocks might be 1 x 1 x 2 foot long maybe a manageable 60 pound blocks. The ends look pretty rough maybe cut with a spade. I'd guess they slid them up a long ramp in the 1-1/2 ton 1936 Ford (actually REO) stake rack truck but also used spades and ice tongs to move them.

After driving the truck the dairy barn off camera to the right they'd off load to a (tar paper covered?) ice house with lots of sawdust insulation surrounding the blocks to kept them cool and prevent them from freezing together where they'd last all summer.

It was difficult to find information but wiki has an informative collection on the ice trade . The US shipped ice around the world in the early 1800's. Maine seemed to have one of the better web sites with a cool historic video from 1943 at the top. Commercial blocks = 24 inch by 24 inch by 20 = 260 pound blocks of ice first cut to a depth of 2 inches above the water line and a final full depth right angle cut.

Retirees will be entertained to watch this ice melt video (largest ever recorded).

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